Republicans Finally Admit What The Shutdown Is About: Making The Tea Party Feel Better

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The conservative media began to report strange rumblings from Republicans on Wednesday, the second day of the government shutdown. Suddenly, Tea Partiers were saying that the government shutdown wasn’t about Obamacare, though they refuse to vote for a continuing resolution passed by the Senate because all their amendments related to the Affordable Care Act have been stripped out.

What is the shutdown about, then? What do Republicans want?

“We’re not going to be disrespected,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) told The Washington Examiner. “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”

I repeat: “And I don’t know what that even is.”

It’s reminiscent of a classic scene from The Godfather II, when Fredo Corleone explained to his brother Michael why he was angry at being passed over by his father:

Stutzman and Bachmann are members of the so-called Suicide Caucus, 80 members of the House who signed a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) urging him to pursue a strategy of defunding Obamacare in exchange for funding the government. But given that this strategy could never work and the government is now shut down, Tea Partiers want “something,” but they “don’t know what that even is.”

UPDATE: Rep. Stutzman has issued a statement about his comments after President Obama referenced them in a speech Thursday morning: “Yesterday, I carelessly misrepresented the ongoing budget debate and Speaker Boehner’s work…”